30 March 2012

Directory Opus 10.0.4.2 (Beta)

Directory Opus 10.0.4.2 beta is now available for all Opus 10 users.


This is a preliminary, beta release. It fixes a number of issues reported since the release of Directory Opus 10.

Because this is beta version, translations may not be fully up-to-date and some English text may appear in non-English versions.

New features and minor changes:
  • Added options to Preferences / Display / Colors and Fonts / File display background to define different background colors when the quick filter is active in the file display.
  • The Filter Bar file extension drop-down now hides extensions that are hidden by other filters (e.g. the Folder Format filters), and also shows a file count alongside each extension.
  • The breadcrumbs field now takes a "focus" argument which, when combined with "left", "right" or "dest", gives focus to the file display in question.
  • Added Set FOLDERTREESIZE command to adjust the size of the folder tree from a button or hotkey.
  • Added Preferences / Viewer / Standalone Viewer / Show full file path in window title option.
  • Added FOURCC column for movie files.
  • It is now possible to assign a hotkey to a menu (to pop the menu open by pressing the key).
  • Added Go TABLIST command to produce a dynamic list of folder tabs.
  • Added Keep folders at top when grouped option to Folder Options. Also added Set GROUPFOLDERSATTOP command to allow this flag to be changed from a button or hotkey.
  • Control + Mouse-wheel now zooms in/out in the viewer pane (consistent with the standalone viewer).
Bug fixes:
  • If all tabs are locked, opening an http URL (e.g. via the Favorites system) no longer results in an unnecessary tab being opened.
  • Fixed a number of refresh/redraw issues when changing cosmetic toolbar options through the Customize dialog when sub-menus are open.
  • Menu text color is now only inherited from the parent toolbar when the background image or background color is as well (fixes hard-to-read menu text with certain toolbar color configurations).
  • Fixed bug where Opus would insert random characters into a command if you used a variable but did not include the closing brace (e.g. "{$test").
  • FTP address book entries with an ampersand (&) in their name would not connect according to the saved settings (e.g. SSH would be ignored).
  • Copying NTFS file descriptions did not work when the source file was in a library.
  • Fixed bug with right-dragdrop menu when dragging from a library to a normal folder.
  • Fixed problem with the names of user-configured folders in the JumpList being incorrectly split at a : or \ character.
  • Fixed horizontal page scrolling problem in List mode.
  • Metadata panel date/time fields did not render their focus rectangles properly.
  • Fixed a problem with the update checker that could potentially cause it to never finish downloading the update.
  • Using the Clipboard COPYNAMES command on a library file that had been added to a collection (e.g. via a search) would result in the internal Opus lib:// path being copied to the clipboard instead of the real file path.
  • Pasting a UNC file path into the location field would result in an error.
  • An advanced filter (e.g. when used with the Find command) would incorrectly fail if it contained a regex "contains" clause that failed, even if other clauses would have matched.
  • With the duplicate file finder, if both a folder and a child directory of that folder had been added to the list of paths to search, Opus would incorrectly return single non-matching files in the results.
  • Dropping files onto folders in the breadcrumbs control could incorrectly run the "dropshift" or "dropctrl" actions even if those keys were not held down.
  • Fixed a bug which prevented some metadata being displayed for movie files.
Known issue with this beta version:
  • (Update: If you re-download the beta, this is fixed.) Opus will crash if you close the Customize window while a three-button is expanded for editing. We'll fix that in the next update.

16 March 2012

Directory Opus 10.0.4.1 (Beta)

Directory Opus 10.0.4.1 beta is now available for all Opus 10 users.


This is a preliminary, beta release. It fixes a number of issues reported since the release of Directory Opus 10.

Because this is beta version, translations may not be fully up-to-date and some English text may appear in non-English versions.

New features and minor changes:
  • Opus now supports the PortableApps system when exporting to USB drives.
  • A limited form of Explorer Replacement mode is now available when running a USB-exported version (see the help file for information on how to enable this).
  • Added Grid lines only in source file display option to Preferences / File Display Modes / Details and Power Modes pages. With this option enabled, if grid lines are turned on they will only be shown when the file display is set as source.
  • The Advanced Find / Filter control can now search/filter by Rating.
  • Added Preferences / File Display Modes / Thumbnails / Overlay relative dimension bars option. This option displays horizontal and vertical bars overlaid on thumbnails that represent the images size relative to the largest image in the folder. The color of the bars can be changed from the Colors and Fonts page.
  • The update checker now offers a "Save" option that lets you save the downloaded updater to be installed later.
  • Added Preferences / Internet / Updates / Don't display the update checker at all option. When this is turned on, the update checker will never be displayed automatically. You will be notified of an available update with an icon in the Lister status bar.
  • Added popup menus on the back/forward/up file display border buttons (right-click, or left-click + hold).
  • The status bar busy indicator is now shown to indicate when a background thread is reading metadata or calculating folder sizes.
  • On Vista and Windows 7, Opus will now display the names of any processes that have a file locked when a delete fails due to a "file in use" error.
  • The Select command has a new SIMILARBASE argument for selecting files with the same base-name and different extensions. e.g. If you are in a directory with cat.avi, cat.srt, dog.avi and dog.srt, running the command with the two .avi files selected will add the two corresponding .srt files to the selection. The command should also be useful for selecting all parts of multi-volume archives.
  • When saving layouts, the Lister's current layout name and settings, if any, are used as the defaults when you are prompted. This makes it easier to update the current layout. Added the Prefs LAYOUTSAVE=updatecurrent command, which updates the Lister's current layout, if there is one, without further prompting. (If there is no current layout then you will still be prompted.)
  • Added Set LISTERCMD ToggleMaximize command to allow a hotkey that toggles between full-screen and restored Lister size.
  • Added the si_size_units option to the Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced page. This lets you choose which unit (decimal or binary) and prefix (KiB vs KB) Opus will use when displaying file sizes and disk space.
  • Added a Group command to the column header context menu, which lets you right-click on a column and group by that column without having to find it in the Group By menu.
Bug fixes:
  • Uploading images to ImageShack without specifying a registered account now works again.
  • Fixed a problem with long path handling which meant Opus couldn't successfully copy a path that was >248 but <260 chars long.
  • Fixed a problem where a move from a file collection containing a library file, into another library, would always do a copy+delete rather than a simple move.
  • Fixed a problem where internal library paths would sometimes be passed to external programs.
  • Libraries displayed in the folder tree's recent list now work correctly.
  • When running Opus from USB you are no longer prompted to install updates.
  • In checkbox mode, with no files checked, dragging a file to the toolbar to drop on a button like Delete was impossible because the Delete button was disabled. Opus now temporarily enables buttons when dragging a file over the toolbar.
  • Grouping by Rating did not work unless the column was also displayed.
  • Fixed a couple of button enable/disable issues to do with three-button mode (forum thread)
  • Fixed a rare crash that was introduced in the previous version (only had one report of this so far).
  • Added protection to the directory size calculation to handle infinite loops caused by filesystems like ext3 which present links as normal directories.
  • Added protection to prevent infinite recursion/stack overflow when the folder tree encounters junctions that point to themselves.
  • Added protection against junctions that create a cyclic loop (a->b, b->c, c->a).
  • Fixed occasional beeping when the FTP/script logs wrapped.
  • A button with the command "Go {sourcepath} EJECT" would not correctly be enabled when on an ejectable drive.
  • Select SIMILAR now works with extensions that contain wildcard characters.
  • Version details from some .exe files were not being extracted properly.
  • Now shows BOM information in Description column for more types of text files (more lenient with content-type/perceived-type).
  • If old-style "descript.ion" file-comments were enabled, moving all files with comments (whether descript.ion or new-style NTFS comments) out of a folder would result in a zero-byte descript.ion file being left or created.
  • Opening a tab group would not properly apply the format of the initial tab if the previous folder was My Computer.
  • Fixed a problem where the progress dialog percent complete could exceed 100%.
  • The Rename dialog's Import Preset command was broken.
  • Grouping by "Other" columns like svn-status now works.
  • Applications launched from Opus in admin mode no longer open behind the Lister.
  • On Windows XP, newer versions TortoiseSVN's menu icons did not appear in Opus.

2 March 2012

Directory Opus 10.0.4.0

Directory Opus 10.0.4.0 is now available as a free update for all Directory Opus 10 users.

You can download the update via the GPSoftware website, or use the Check For Program Updates command in the program's Help menu.

If you use the German (Deutsch) version of Opus, go to Haage & Partner's downloads page for the program update, Help file and additional resources translated into German. (For all other languages, use GPSoftware's site.)


The 10.0.4.0 update includes everything from the 10.0.3.x beta versions:
The update also includes the following new changes:
  • Fix for problems recursively creating directories on network shares which return a non-standard error value when checking the share root itself. This could prevent Opus from running at all if the user-profile was on a UNC path pointing at such a server.
  • Styles which change folder and set columns would not properly enable the new columns if the starting location was My Computer.

Finally, here are two 15 minute video guides which highlight some of the changes since 10.0.3.0: